Tag Archives: vacation

Vacation – All I Ever Wanted

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You know that period when vacation is impending? You know it’s looming just around the corner. But you just can’t seem to get to the corner.   Every work deadline blows up. The “forty-hour a week with a real lunch every day” job suddenly turns into the office nightmare wellness blogs love to attack:

I was at my desk at ten o’clock at night, feeling too full of cheesy fries, when I burst into tears. I decided then to put on my Lululemon pants, eat some kale and meditate my way into a new life.

Joking aside, right before vacation is when you find yourself speaking forcefully in industry acronyms from eight a.m. until eight p.m. For once when you turn away from the family dinner to “check work email,” you actually are doing that – and not scouring for a quick update on the Gwen Stefani pregnancy rumors.

You long for the previous week when you were killing time in the office pantry hearing all about your colleague’s upcoming wedding bouquet, or her dog’s latest vet visit. Why didn’t someone tighten your project deadlines then, so you could have scurried off, escaping the age-old calla lilies v. baby rose debate?

Because the time right before your vacation is when everything else also goes bust. Like your air conditioner, which worked perfectly well until two days before your departure. This means you actually have enough time to get it fixed – even thought if it had just waited until you left, you could have relegated it to an Act of God, and carried on with your daiquiri. But now you must mentally set aside a few thousand dollars of your fun vacation budget, and add a painful phone call to your to-do list, filled with technical jargon of its own – none of which you understand.

And somehow, as a packing procrastination strategy, you decided to open your mail. You find out that you have been the victim of fraud, as Anthony Loran decided to get himself a credit card from your account.  Phone call to “Heather” at a call center in the Philippines anyone?   And your credit card company gives you detailed instructions on how to insist an apathetic police department register your violation as an official crime.  Surely, it’ll be up there with murders. That vacation budget is getting even smaller as you realize you’ll be credit card-less effective immediately.

By the time you get to the airport in the early hours of the morning, you are just grateful to be there. You smile at the TSA staff, and try to crack jokes with the coffee stall barista. How wonderful you didn’t murder your spouse when you disagreed at one in the morning on the luggage to be brought. You think maybe you have finally mastered gratitude and mindfulness. But really, it’s just your two hours of sleep showing.  And that is when you know you’ve turned the corner.  Happy vacay.

 

My Summer Vacation

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I am in the midst of planning a trip. The kind that covers thousands of miles and stretches over oceans and a few continents. One that requires navigating bureaucratic, unintelligible processes for acquiring a visa, and a regimen of preventive medications to nix any chance of visiting a local hospital during the stay.   It also means packing precious commodities that will decide the happiness quotient of the trip: ibuprofen; a hairbrush (not a tiny plastic comb that will get stuck in my bangs, but a brush please); sunblock that didn’t expire five years ago; Snickers that didn’t expire five years ago; and anti-frizz serum. Lots of anti-frizz serum.

Travel is wonderful. Intricate planning is kind of not. Especially for those of us whose anxiety rises with every click of the mouse. That perfect charming hotel in the heart of the city, tucked away on a tree-lined street? Nasty staff, poisoned food, but very friendly mice, says the reviewer. Well, at least, that’s what I think it says, since the only review since hotel inception is in Italian. That absolute must-do restaurant, latest darling of the foodies? It is open on Thursdays from eight to nine thirty-three in the evening, and Sundays from eleven to eleven fifteen in the morning.

Maybe you are thinking I should just wing it, be more spontaneous, and challenge my rigidity?  That’s the trip where I find myself on my hotel room bed, chewing a veggie Whopper Jr., watching “Friends” reruns, because it is the holy festival of the five-legged goddess, and all businesses are blissfully closed.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all doom and gloom. For the return luggage will be full of jewels: first off, lots of actual bold, bright jewels; then, fried dough, fried spicy dough, fried sweet dough, fried dough with anise, and fried dough with onions; a variety of Cadbury’s chocolates that are too artificial to pass Western regulatory muster; and most definitely, a tiny intricately carved sandalwood comb that will get stuck in my bangs.

There will also be beautiful memories. A lush mango tree with a monkey playfully hanging off a branch. Wet rice paddies that never end.  Me, shiny-haired and fresh-faced, floating through a weathered marble palace. Ok, that last bit was a Merchant Ivory film. But at least now I see the light at the end of the Trip Advisor tunnel.

Bon voyage, and remember, it is perfectly normal to hallucinate on anti-malaria pills.

Tiny Tiny

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Little one, come on out.  It’s dinner time.  I think of your small figure racing across the edge of the garden, close against the fence, and alert to the smell of fish dropping from my fingers onto the terrace tile.  You usually dart forward as you see your siblings hungrily attacking their share.  I crouch down, smiling, and lean towards you but you always scamper back, shy and fearful; even as you have seen your mother build trust in me over the past four days.

Your brother was bold enough to follow me yesterday, uninvited, into our rented villa.  This is the brother with black markings on white, including a black chin that makes him seem older than his baby body.  You and your siblings have started rocking yourselves to sleep on the terrace chairs, while I peer out at you from inside the pool, sliding the wet strands of hair away from my eyes.

Please come to me and eat this, special order from the resort restaurant.  You see, if you don’t, I will run out of time.

Until you come, I won’t be able to watch and shout enraged at referees, and stomp and sulk at the thought of a country’s loss.  Or bawl elatedly when that same country is able to turn penalty kicks into a win.  But I can’t indulge in any of this unless you receive your bit.  The sight of your orange-streaked face and your snow-white paws have become more important than the beautiful game.  Because when the sticky flakes fall off my fingers in your direction, I tell myself you will grow strong and survive, despite the fact that I will be heading home.  That even in this distant, unprotected world you will be all right – because the world is kind to tiny, tiny cats.